viii, 500 pages : 25 cm

"Just days after the Germans surrendered at Stalingrad, legendary Red Army sniper Vasily Zaytsev described the horrors he witnessed during the five-month long conflict: 'One sees the young girls, the children who hang from trees in the park... I have unsteady nerves and I'm constantly shaking.' He was being interviewed, along with 214 other men and women-soldiers, officers, civilians, administrative staffers and others--amidst the rubble that remained of Stalingrad by members of Moscow's Historical Commission. Sent by the Kremlin, their aim was to record a comprehensive, historical documentary of the tremendous hardships overcome and heroic triumphs achieved during the battle. 20 soldiers of the 38th Rifle Division vividly recount how they stumbled upon the commander of the German troops, Field Marshal Friederich Paulus, defeated and hiding in a bed that reeked like a latrine. A lieutenant colonel remembers the brave 20 year-old adjutant who wrapped his arms around his commander's body to protect him from a flying grenade. Working around the clock, Nurse Vera Gurova describes a 24 hour period during which her hospital received more than 600 wounded men--equivalent to one every two and an half minutes. Countless soldiers endured shrapnel wounds and received blood transfusions in the trenches, but she can't forget the young amputee who begged her to avenge his suffering at Stalingrad. This harrowing montage of distinct voices was so candid that the Kremlin forbade its publication and consigned the bulk of these documents to a Moscow archive where they remained forgotten for decades, until now. Jochen Hellbeck's Stalingrad is a definitive portrait of perhaps the greatest urban battle of the Second World War--a pivotal moment in the course of the war re-created with absolute candor and chilling veracity by the voices of the men and women who fought there"--

"First published in Germany in 2012 by S. Fischer Verlag GmbH"--Title page verso

Includes bibliographical references and index

1. Introduction -- A Pivotal Struggle -- Interpretations of the Battle -- Revolutionary Army -- Stalin's City -- Prewar Era -- Army and Party in War -- Commanders and Commissars -- Politics, Up Close -- The Hero Strategy -- Good and Bad Soldiers -- Forms of Combat -- People in War -- Historians of the Avant-Garde -- The Commission in Stalingrad -- The Transcripts -- Sources and Editorial Principles -- 2. A Chorus of Soldiers -- The Fate of the City and Its Residents -- Agrafena Pozdnyakova -- Gurtyev's Rifle Division in Battle -- Vasily Grossman's "In the Line of the Main Drive" -- The Landing at Latoshinka -- The Capture of Field Marshal Paulus -- 3. Nine Accounts of the War -- General Vasily Chuikov -- Guards Division General Alexander Rodimzev -- Nurse Vera Gurova -- A Lieutenant from Odessa : Alexander Averbuch -- Regiment Commander Alexander Gerasimov -- The History Instructor : Captain Nikolai Aksyonov -- Sniper Vasily Zaytsev -- A Simple Soldier : Alexander Parchomenko -- Captain Pyotr Sayonchkovsky -- 4. The Germans Speak -- German Prisoners in February 1943 -- A German Diary from the Kessel -- 5. War and Peace -- Maps

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